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What ’easy’ language do you find hard? | ||
Tags: Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4545 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 113 of 134 27 May 2014 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
Really? Maybe they're just pissed off because well, you tricked them. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gollum87 Diglot Newbie Yugoslavia Joined 3775 days ago 31 posts - 46 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English Studies: Italian | Message 114 of 134 28 May 2014 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, I haven't learned that many languages in my life (only English, French, Latin and Italian)...
I would say Italian isn't that easy as I expected.. Some people say it is one of the easiest languages to learn, but for me, it is not that easy.. I still have problems with prepositions and iregular verbs... and sometimes they speak so fast that I just can't understand them even when they speak about some basic things... But still, it is not that difficult as French (for me) Edited by Gollum87 on 28 May 2014 at 1:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4460 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 115 of 134 28 May 2014 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm sure if history had worked out differently and English was just this language with crazy spelling "rules" and unfathomable tenses which was spoken only on an island near Europe, people would avoid it like the plague and focus on the far easier option of Spanish, French, German or whatever else had established itself as a lingua franca. Edited by beano on 28 May 2014 at 2:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gollum87 Diglot Newbie Yugoslavia Joined 3775 days ago 31 posts - 46 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English Studies: Italian | Message 116 of 134 28 May 2014 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, I guess that if English wasn't the lingua franca, it would be more difficult for everybody to learn... I've never thought it was an easy language, but it is the one that we hear the most in TV, music, movies (here in Serbia we always use subtitles, never record voices in movies)..
We are used to it and it is everywhere so it helps us learn it better then we learn other languages... Edited by Gollum87 on 28 May 2014 at 2:56pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3937 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 117 of 134 28 May 2014 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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That makes me think of last night's party...
Whenever I'm in Sweden I am bombarded with lazy excuses for why so-and-so doesn't learn a foreign language. I don't know what it is, I never bring up the topic of languages, but everyone always feel like they need to explain why they don't speak French, or another third language, fluently. It's usually that all languages except for English are too difficult, and even English, of course, is pretty difficult. Second language learners can never learn a native-like accent. Adult learners are too old to achieve fluency. And so on and so forth. Then it switches to English and how it's okay that they never learned English with a decent pronunciation either because they've heard leaders of industry and politicians speaking English and they are just so terrible they couldn't possibly sound as bad themselves. Cue an anecdote when a boss or a co-worker made an ass of themselves choosing the wrong word in English. Lots of laughter, at least from the particular people who come up to me and complain about languages without prompting. Last night's anecdote was about an acquaintance who got a flat in London and, after picking up the key, found that the holes in the walls after the removal of paintings had not been fixed. He/she called the real estate agent and demanded that the agent come over and "remove the hookers, it's full of hookers". Laughter! Oh, the hilarity! Blah. When they got over how amusing a mistake it was they started debating what the correct expression would have been. None of the people who laughed could remember that the plural of "hook" is "hooks". English is everywhere, though, so they obviously knew what "hookers" are. Edited by eyðimörk on 28 May 2014 at 3:52pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 3870 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 118 of 134 28 May 2014 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
English would not simplify due to heavy use, for all we know, we would speak something like the dorset dialect with two genders left and thou and whither and whence and stuff. The thing is that languages in Europe tend to be very complicated by the worlds standards anyway. I would rather a world where Mandarin is the lingua franca because it would force many out of their comfort zone in Europe into actually realizing that other language families aren't exotic mutants when their native languages are the real freaks instead. Edited by Stolan on 28 May 2014 at 5:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3937 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 119 of 134 28 May 2014 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I take it you've lived and travelled far more extensively in Europe than in America, Stolan, since you keep referring to how Europeans (as a unified group no less) do this and how Europeans think that, and how Europeans will react in such-and-such situation, rather than considering, say, how it would force the people you live amongst would be forced out of their comfort zone in the same situation.
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6994 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 120 of 134 28 May 2014 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
Man, what are you on? And can you get off the high horse already? We get it that one of your pet peeves is how you think non-Romance or non-Germanic languages are (mis)represented by some people. Move the hell on since ignorance of others' languages and cultures is not the preserve of some mythical European half-wit that you like to use as a foil to your point of view. On a lighter note, screw Mandarin and make 'em all learn Mongolian to pay homage to Chinggis Khaan, the true world conqueror, I say. ;-) 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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